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It is said that a lie has a thousand wings, but the truth has nowhere to fly. Ahead of Iceland’s 29 August 2026 referendum on EU membership, the Yes Movement had easy access to foreign journalists, who, like their Icelandic counterparts, tend to be euromantics. It fed them false stories about the No Movement. One egregious example was an interview in the online magazine EUobserver, in which Soňa Weissová spoke with Thorvaldur Gylfason, a professor emeritus at the University of Iceland and a vocal supporter of EU membership.
A Conspiracy Theorist
Thorvaldur (most Icelanders do not use family names; Gylfason simply means the son of Gylfi) is well known in Iceland. He founded a political party in 2013 with two goals: to amend the constitution, essentially turning it into a lengthy wish list, and to expropriate the exclusive fishing rights allocated to fishing vessel owners since 1975 in the pelagic fisheries (herring, capelin, and mackerel) and since 1983 in the demersal fisheries (cod, halibut, redfish, saithe, and haddock). His party received less than 2.5 per cent of the vote and won no seats in parliament. Thorvaldur has adopted some strange positions. He suggests, for example, that Richard M. Nixon was involved in John F. Kennedy’s assassination and that Tower 7 in New York was not felled by an aeroplane.
Dr Baudenbacher in Iceland
In the EUobserver interview, Thorvaldur presented his latest conspiracy theory: that Icelandic oligarchs were trying to hijack the referendum. The No movement, he said, ‘has brought to Iceland a Swiss lawyer who is known to have worked for the Putin regime in Moscow and is known to have represented a Russian oligarch who was trying to escape EU-imposed sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.’ He added: ‘His name is Carl Baudenbacher.’ Thorvaldur made several false claims. First, Ragnar Árnason and I, both professors emeriti at the University of Iceland, invited Dr Baudenbacher, an internationally recognised expert in European law, to Iceland to give a scholarly lecture on the EU. However, the University cancelled our booking of a meeting hall when the No Movement advertised the lecture (as Ragnar and I had permitted it to do, and for which there are many precedents), and we moved the lecture elsewhere. Dr Baudenbacher did not charge anything for his lecture, and a think tank that Ragnar and I run paid his airfare and accommodation.
No Connection to Putin
Secondly, Dr Baudenbacher has no connection whatsoever to Vladimir Putin. An Icelandic fish-processing technology company, Vélfag, was sanctioned by the authorities for allegedly having a Russian shadow owner, Vitaly Orlov. The company strenuously denies this and is challenging the sanctions before the EFTA Surveillance Authority. At the request of the company’s Icelandic lawyer, and with the approval of the Icelandic Foreign Ministry, Dr Baudenbacher was appointed its legal counsel. That is all. I have no idea about the merits of the case, but surely this company is entitled to legal representation. Indeed, Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights recognises such a fundamental right.
Iceland: Democracy, Not Oligarchy
Thirdly, in the interview, Thorvaldur claims that Iceland has become an oligarchy controlled by the owners of the largest fishing firms. This is odd, given Iceland’s very low income inequality, probably the lowest in the world, negligible poverty, good pension provisions for the elderly, and a high standard of living and a long democratic tradition. One would not expect such outcomes in an oligarchy. According to the UN Human Development Index, Iceland is actually the world’s best place to live. Iceland’s leading fishing firms are economically strong, but they are not politically powerful. For example, only a fraction of political parties’ revenue comes from them. By contrast, the pro-EU soft left—to which Thorvaldur Gylfason belongs—controls both the government broadcasting company and the universities, as in many other countries. During the campaign, it used this control to support the Yes Movement, which also spent at least as much on advertisements as the No Movement.